9. CHAPTER VI. THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE BY THE ONE INFINITE GOD, FROM THE DIVINE LOVE BY MEANS OF THE DIVINE WISDOM

1. Enlightened reason sees that the very first origin of the world is love, and that the world was created from that by means of wisdom. It is owing to this and not anything else that the world is, from its first things to its last things, a work that is eternally self-consistent.

2. That the world was created from love by means of wisdom, thus by means of the Sun ¹ which is pure Love with Jehovah God in the midst of it, can be seen from the correspondence of love with heat, and wisdom with light. By means of these two, heat and light, the world continues in existence, and year by year all the things on its surface are created; and if they were both withdrawn, the world would fall into chaos, and so into nothing.

3. There are three things that follow in regular sequence and go forth in inseparable companionship, namely, Love, Wisdom, and Use.

4. Love comes into existence by means of wisdom, and in use continues in existence.

5. These three are in God, and the three of them go forth from God.

6. The created universe consists of an endless number of receptacles of those three.

7. Because love and wisdom come into existence and continue in existence in use, the created universe is a receptacle of uses, which, by reason of their source, are limitless.

8. As all good is from God and good and use are one, and as the created universe is the fullness of uses in forms, it follows that the created universe is the fullness of God.

9. That creation was effected from the Divine Love by means of the Divine Wisdom is meant by these words in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... All things were made by Him . . . and the world was made by Him. [John 1:1, 3, 10.]

By " God " there is meant the Divine Good of love, and by " the Word " which also was God, the Divine Truth of wisdom.

10. Evils, or evil uses, did not come into existence until after creation.

Footnotes:

5340. And he gathered together all the food of the seven years. That this signifies the preservation of truth adjoined to good multiplied during the first times, is evident from the signification of “gathering together,” as here being to preserve; for he gathered it together and put it in the cities and in the midst, and by this is signified that he stored it up in the interiors, thus that he preserved it, for it came into use in the years of famine; and from the signification of “food,” as being all that by which the internal man is nourished. That this is good and truth, is evident from the correspondence of the earthly food by which the outward man is nourished, with the spiritual food by which the internal man is nourished. Here therefore it is truth adjoined to good, for this is what is preserved and stored up in the interiors.

By the “seven years” are signified the first states when truths are multiplied (n. 5339). From this it is plain that the preservation of truth adjoined to good, multiplied during the first times, is signified by “he gathered together all the food of the seven years.” It is said “the preservation of truth adjoined to good,” but as few know what truth adjoined to good is, and still less how and when truth is adjoined to good, something must be said about it. Truth is conjoined with good when a man feels delight in doing well to the neighbor for the sake of what is true and good, and not for the sake of self or the world. When a man is in this affection, the truths he hears or reads or thinks are conjoined with good, as is usually noticeable from the affection of truth for the sake of that end.